Key Findings: ·         All of the 48 ALJ focused reviews conducted by SSA and reviewed by Committee staff showed numerous deficiencies in ALJ decision-making and several disturbing patterns. ALJs conducted few or inadequate hearings, misused vocational experts, failed to properly assess work ability and relied too heavily on medical briefs prepared by claimants’ paid ...

Today, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., released a staff report which finds poor decision-making by administrative law judges (ALJs) in the Social Security Administration (SSA) disability programs has potentially wasted billions of taxpayer ...

“Each year, the federal government spends $80 billion on federal information technology systems, yet much of that is wasted on cost overruns, long delays, and servicing outdated programs,” said Issa. “By giving Chief Information Officers the budgetary authority over what their agency spends on IT, we are putting those who best know technology in charge of buying technology. Our current disjointed and fractured system lacks clear lines of authority and leaves IT decisions in the hands of ...

“As someone who supported both the House and Senate versions of FOIA reform, I’m disappointed that the House ran out of time to address concerns in the Senate bill and the Senate declined to approve a House passed version, which had only minimal differences,” said Chairman Issa. “The reality is that, even today, the Senate could still send a bipartisan FOIA bill to the President if they were willing to accept some minimal differences.”

“As one of the architects of ObamaCare, Jonathan Gruber is in a unique position to shed light on the ‘lack of transparency’ surrounding the passage of the President’s health care law, however he has so far been unwilling to fully comply with the Oversight Committee’s repeated requests,” Chairman Issa said in a statement. “This week, Dr. Gruber repeatedly refused to answer several key questions, including the amount of taxpayer funds he received for his work on ObamaCare. The ...

“The FOIA Improvement Act will strengthen FOIA, the cornerstone open government law,” Issa and Cummings said in a joint statement. “The House unanimously passed companion legislation, H.R. 1211, earlier this year. The FOIA Improvement Act is a bipartisan bill that, after last night’s passage by the Senate, deserves to be taken up by the House and sent to the President.”

Key findings: ·  The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the primary federal regulator of over 4,500 banks, targeted legal industries.  FDIC’s explicitly intended its list of “high-risk merchants” to influence banks’ business decisions.   FDIC policymakers debated ways to ensure that bank officials saw the list and “get the message.” · Documents ...